Purpose - who truly lost it

CBC's Don Pittis argues politicians miss out the "human factor" in all their stimulus planning, that the general populace in the States is as good as in a motivation coma. Though I agree with his analysis (you can give man the money but you can't make him spend it right) I disagree with his conclusion that a new "sense of purpose" is needed.

People tend to strive to improve their situation, earn a better livelihood and seek their own maximum happiness. Without digressing into Objectivist arguments, US consumers forgot that a loan is not as earned as a honest income. It was money, to spend at their heart's volition. We all saw the ads for car loans, vacation loans, plasma TV loans, as if the whole economy was supposed, like in a defaulting third-world country, to run on credit and a shopkeeper's "black book". I was brought up in cultures where debt is considered an infamy to be hidden, and I'm sure glad for this moral code I acquired. If I and my family can live within our modest means, why can't everyone else?

Pittis wants to rest from the shock and let society find a new sense of purpose. The United States has been made great by the purpose of generations of Americans: to do something better than anyone around them could. This purpose is still alive in those who hold true to it, and they're the ones who are getting screwed by the stimuli. The true purpose of "Live by your means and seek to increase them" is in no way served by showering the cause of the crisis with freshly-minted cash.

Because if the growth by IOU was a delusion of the masses, patching it up with new fabric is a well thought-out plan by the Administration to close their eyes and keep the broken roller-coaster running without replacing a single rail. It's the government who've lost the sense of purpose, and this is why these purposeless bailouts will not work as they were intended to, if at all.